The Labor Department said Monday that it has yet to make a decision on whether to delay Friday’s closely-watched October employment report due to the effects from Hurricane Sandy. Federal government offices in Washington are closed Monday and may be shut again Tuesday due to the storm. It isn’t clear if the closure would cause a delay in processing the data.
“We will assess the situation when the weather emergency is over and notify the press and public of any changes at that time,” said Gary Steinberg, spokesman for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the data arm of the department.
The Labor Department is also scheduled to release its third quarter employment cost index Wednesday, and the third quarter productivity and weekly jobless claims reports Thursday.
The most closely watched is Friday’s jobs report, which will give the final measure the unemployment ahead of next week’s presidential election.
In September, the rate fell to 7.8%, the lowest level since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009. Meanwhile, the economy added 114,000 that month.
The surveys for the October employment report were conducted earlier this month. The unemployment rate comes from a survey of 60,000 households and the jobs figures comes from the establishment survey of 141,000 business and agencies.
However, it isn’t clear that government statisticians and others will be able complete the preparation of the jobs report before scheduled release time due to the weather and associated power outages and transportation disruptions.
A Census official said that agency too has made “no decision” on delaying economic data reports due out later this week. The Census, part of the Department of Commerce, is scheduled to release the construction spending report Thursday and the factory order data Friday.
